Alumni Offerings
Our alumni programs are designed to support students who have completed the MBSR or MSC programs and have moved beyond a beginers practice in mindfulness.
The three jewels of mindfulness practice are often centered around your own awareness, the teachings, and the community. We invite you to deepen your practice and connect with your fellow alumni to continuing your learning, build friendships and long-term dharma friends and to deepen your personal practice and understanding of the underpinnings.
Upcoming Alumni Programs
Free Drop-in Sits Monthly:
Monthly Community Sits: First Monday of Each Month 6:00-7:00 pm PST
There is a hybrid option - email colleen@equilibrium-mbsr.com for the zoom link and physical location
Retreats:
Online Retreats: All retreats are online and provided through UMASS Memorial Health
Finding Your Center: A New Year’s Retreat through UMASS
February 7 - 9, 2025 - $495 USD
The New Year can be a time of reflection and intention. In order to look more deeply into our intentions and actions we must start by understanding how to still the mind and body enough to become aware of our habits and patterns. This three-day online retreat will offer the grounding practices of the four elements, which remind us of the interdependent and interconnected nature of ourselves and the world around us. Connecting with nature can provide us with a sense of refuge and stability. With that base we will take the time to care for ourselves through the exploration of the different heart qualities: loving kindness, compassion, equanimity and joy.
Mindfulness: A Gateway to Transformation,
A Three-Day Retreat to Deepen Practice through UMASS
August 22 – 24, 2025 - $495 USD
Meditation practice can help us understand the different habits and patterns of the mind, both the beautiful and the challenging. Spending time on retreat gives us the time to stay with our direct experience which can illuminate so much of what happens in the experience of the mind and body. This can support us in learning how to skillfully navigate what arises moment by moment. In this way meditation practice can become a gateway to a deeper understanding and greater levels of awareness. It can also help us discover that no part of ourselves needs to be left out, even the places we get stuck or challenged. Through meditation practice we may come to rediscover our intrinsic wholeness. We hope you will join us on this weekend of discovery and practice.
Cultivating Contentment by Exploring the Qualities of
Balance, Energy and Calm through UMASS
October 17 - 19, 2025 - $495 USD
Mindfulness can help us develop qualities that benefit our meditation practice and our daily lives. In this retreat, we will explore in depth the qualities of Mindfulness, Investigation, Energy, Joy, Tranquility, Concentration, and Equanimity. When these qualities are well-developed, the mind becomes balanced and experiences a sense of freedom from the places that can keep us stuck or contracted. Together, we’ll explore why we get caught in these patterns and how mindfulness can help us let go, leading to greater happiness and ease in our lives.
Yearlong Committed Alumni Program:
I am excited to announce a brand-new format for the yearlong program. This year there will be different ways to deepen practice between six-week class sessions. The program will be a combination of retreats, drop-in sitting practices, and two six week classes. All of the retreats listed above can be a support for the curriculum we will cover this year. Through retreats and classes we will explore the four elements, the Brahma Viharas, Concentration Practices, The Five Hindrances, and the Seven Awakening Factors. The charge for the two six-week programs will be $600. The retreats are charged directly through UMASS and you can take as many or few as you like. We will also have a free monthly drop-in mediation sits to keep the continuity of community and practice throughout this year together.
Suggested Format
Part 1: (February 7-9) Finding Your Center: A New Year’s Retreat through UMASS
Part 2: Spring Program: Tuesdays (April 9th to May 13th) 6-8pm PST
In this course we will explore the Brahma Viharas in our meditation practice with the focus of building concentration. We will learn to use these practices to stabilize the mind. This has a different flavor than cultivating the Brahma Viharas as concepts in the first yearlong program.
Part 3: (August 22-24) Mindfulness: A Gateway to Transformation, A Three-Day Retreat to Deepen Practice through UMASS
Part 4: Fall Program: Tuesdays (September 9th to October 14th) 6-8pm PST
In this course we will explore elements of concentration practice. This class will include many experimental practices and will also include selected reading from Rob Burbeas book: The Seeing that Frees.
Part 5: (October 17-19) Cultivating Contentment by Exploring the Qualities of Balance, Energy and Calm through UMASS
Meet your guide,
Colleen Camenisch
Colleen Camenisch is the founder of equilibrium-mbsr, is a Certified Teacher through the UMASS Center for Mindfulness, and has been teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs along with other meditation courses for over a decade. Colleen taught one year at the UMASS Center for Mindfulness, and remains adjunct faculty at the UMASS Center for Mindfulness and at the Brown University Mindfulness Center.
“I took Colleen’s introductory 8 week MBSR class in 2017 shortly after my father died. I found the readings, meditation practice, group support and weekly reflections plus Colleen’s kind and wise style very helpful. Since then, I have taken many short courses from Colleen and am in my fourth year of her Committed Alumni classes. These classes have truly benefited my life. I highly recommend Colleen and these life-enhancing programs.”
— Susan Stewart
I took my first 2-month long MBSR course with Colleen Camenisch 6 years ago. It was life changing. My main goal was to reduce stress and anxiety. I am now in my third-year long course going deep into meditation practices and Buddhist Philosophy. Some of the benefits I have noticed are reduced rumination, reduced stress and anxiety, increased empathy, increased self-esteem and self-compassion, reduced reactivity, increased relationship satisfaction, enhanced self-insight, intuition, and fear modulation. I absolutely recommend Colleen, she is excellent. Colleen is very knowledgeable, and her guidance is crucial, I could not have done it by myself.
— Gabriela Brochu
